Brokaw Watches Explosion Fallout

Tom Brokaw got a taste earlier this week of how Bill Clinton must have felt when he wanted to discuss issues last year while the media was obsessed with gossip.

Brokaw took part in a telephone press conference to publicize a documentary on America`s illegal immigration crisis, which he is hosting Sunday night. But TV writers had an agenda of their own. They wanted to discuss the Dateline NBC scandal and the other NBC News turmoil.

Brokaw always has been cooperative and forthcoming with critics. He knew what he would be walking into but believed he could win the battle of wills. As it turned out, he got a draw, which was satisfactory to both sides.

He answered a couple of questions on the tempest within his shop, then curtly informed the writers, ``I am not going to spend the half-hour (the time allotted for the press conference) talking about it. We have other business to do here.``

So the TV writers spent the next few minutes politely inquiring about a documentary in which they had little interest, a program that has an excellent chance of becoming the least-watched prime-time show of the season.

It`s bad enough that the topic is as threadbare, deadly boring and unsolvable as gun control, welfare and poverty. On top of all this, the hourlong special has been scheduled opposite 60 Minutes.

Once the writers believed enough of Brokaw`s other business had been conducted, they resumed peppering him with questions about NBC News.

BOWING TO THE INEVITABLE

You have to admire Brokaw`s gameness. He has sufficient clout to get out of inevitably unpleasant duty. Yet he volunteered to do it.

In fact, he revealed that he could have been out of the entire NBC mess and into a job that, for an avid outdoorsman, seems like a dream come true.

He confirmed that reports he had been offered the post of Director of the National Parks Service were accurate. ``Sen. Babbit (now Interior Secretary) did call me. He asked me to consider it and I did. I was flattered. But my place is here. Given what we have gone through here, this is not the time to leave.``

A lesser person might have come to the oppposite conclusion for the same reasons.

At the same time, he let it be known that his esprit de corps does have its limits. He also could have been Michael Gartner`s replacement as president of NBC News. The job was offered and he gave it serious consideration, he said.

Playing to his audience, he joked that he decided against it when he realized it meant he would have to appear regularly on the semiannual press tours. ``I`d rather be Smokey the Bear than do that.``

After getting the anticipated laugh, he said the real reason he decided against taking the title is, ``You can`t be your own boss.``

Even without the title, however, Brokaw has been playing the role of captain. One of the first things he did when the Dateline scandal broke, he said, was to stroll the newsroom offering ``locker-room style`` pep talks to his colleagues.

He didn`t attempt to defend the indefensible, but he did say he believed the rigged GM truck explosion story had been blown out of proportion for three reasons: contempt for General Electric, NBC`s parent company; dislike for Gartner and his prickly condescending attitude; and the obsessive interest the media has in itself, a passion not shared by the general public, in Brokaw`s estimation.

``If you look at the report, there were errors. But this was the exception.``